Moon Flower

Sometimes I think about the pond…

And the memories it came with…my dad…my passion on the ice.

Small town ponds make for the best frozen over ice rinks.

He watched me that day…I told him not to go – but a business meeting had him dancing in his seat.

He wasn’t concerned about watching me skate – just as much as I wasn’t concerned about his business meeting.

I sit here now and reminisce “what would have happened if he didn’t go? Would I still have my father”? The pond is melted these days, with memories of my skates and his presence.

There’s no one here to take me home today.

In my 30’s, I have my own car, my own house, my own means of survival. However, what does it mean to not have a father? One who died before his time..?

My dog, well, daddy’s dog, Jay, he stays right here by my side. Ever since dad left, I’m the only one he knows. Jay knows that my heart is broken. We come to this pond together every Sunday because Jay knows – that’s when he saw daddy last.

That’s when both of us saw him last.

As at young girl, he sent me out on the ice one day, with a rusty pair of skates and told me “make your mother proud”. I had heard stories of my mother since birth, so I strapped the skates on, and gave it everything I had.

Year after year, I practiced on the iced over pond with those skates, hoping to make my mother proud. No one knew the struggles my daddy faced everyday in her absence.

The pictures she put up still haunted the halls. The pillows she put on the couch, daddy wouldn’t let anyone touch them. Moon flowers were her favorite. They were everywhere in the house décor because mom wanted moon flowers at their wedding. The wedding photos they kept in the den were off limits. He was never able to look at them.

I wanted to go outside one afternoon, but saw that the pond wasn’t frozen over. So I stepped inside the den and turned on the VCR. All the home videos of mom were still in the same spot, labeled by event. One label caught my eye. “Our first day on the pond”.

I put the video in the VCR and hit play.

There stood daddy, on one knee with jay beside of him, giving a pair of skates to mom. She tried them on and stepped out on the ice.

She was mystical in the fury of shredded ice. She glided so gracefully and spun like she was meant to be there.

I looked down at my feet. The rusty skates daddy had given me belonged to her.

I kept watching the tape. The love between them was insatiable, only to be seen in the greatest of love stories. She left the world that day, on a business call.

My daddy left this world the same way.

He watched me put on mom’s skates and head for the ice. He was in a hurry to watch me finish my routine and get back to work.

A car struck. It was cold enough for the ice to freeze on the pond, and rainy enough to make his wheels slide on the interstate.

My mother and father left the world by car accident.

The only difference between the two is simple…

Daddy never showed me where mom’s grave was. But today, in my mom’s rusty skates, I lay a photo on his grave of their wedding day. And Jay, he laid down mom’s favorite flower.

A moon flower.